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MOTD: Leicester City 2-2 West Bromwich Albion

By on March 1, 2016

This was the first time Leicester City have dropped points in a month-and-a-half, and their second winless game out of their last three Premier League fixtures.  Under any other manager at any other team, the cracks should begin to appear in their title challenge.

Leicester, however, are not any other team, and Claudio Ranieri’s boundless energy and positivity drives their title charge on pure motivation alone.  The Italian manager focused – quite understandably – on the positives as his league-leading team drew West Bromwich Albion 2-2 at home, courtesy of goals from Danny Drinkwater and Andy King.

“I want to create a lot of chances and sooner or later we will score. Tonight wasn’t the right moment but we are alive and we fight to the end. Everybody is ready to fight, to play well, to create chances. Only the victory was missing,” he said, per the BBC.

Even West Brom manager Tony Pulis said: “I’d love to see Leicester win the title.”

“Leicester City are in some ways an old-fashioned team, the way they play, they play through the pitch quickly, they get the balls wide and they get bodies in the box. They play really exciting football,” he smiled.

Despite the lost points tonight, the Foxes haven’t foresaken their irresistible charm.

They became the first Premier League team this season to score more than fifty goals this season and upon reflection, Ranieri was “not happy, but satisfied with their performance.”

Leicester were incredibly fortunate for Drinkwater’s equalizer to deflect off of Jonas Olsson and into the back of the net, but it’s the type of luck they have created and deserve.  Both Vardy and Shinji Okazaki rattled the woodwork from headers and the Foxes kept sixty-five-percent of possession.

West Brom displayed a typically defensive performance, which takes them twelve points clear of the drop with just ten matches to go.  The visitors bagged a surprise opener early on as Darren Fletcher slipped a lovely through ball down the right channel for Salomón Rondon.  The Venezuelan forward had had the pace to get around Huth, the power to knock him off the ball, and the composure to cooly tuck a low finish under Schmeichel and into the back of the net.  It was his third goal in his past five Premier League appearances.

Vardy and Okazaki both had half chance as Leicester piled on the pressure and on the half hour mark, Drinkwater fizzed in a low effort from twenty-five yards.  The ball spun off of Olsson’s foot and looped into the top left corner the net.

In the thirty-sixth minute, Vardy nipped ahead of his defender and powered a header onto the crossbar and Andy King completed Leicester’s comeback on the brink of the half.  Mahrez brought down a long, raking diagonal ball over the top with the deftest of back-heel flicks for King to finish from fifteen yards.

On the other side of the half, Gardener, whipped a lovely free-kick up, over the wall and into the back of the net from twenty-five yards and West Brom retreated back into their shape.  Leicester came close on multiple occasions, with Okazaki rising to head an unstoppable left onto the crossbar from Marc Albrighton’s cross.

Vardy turned on the afterburners in the seventieth minute to take the ball off of [name] down the left and drive into the middle.  The league’s top scorer drove into the middle and arrowed a low effort towards the near post, which Ben Foster brilliantly deflected wide with his foot.  Nevertheless, the Baggies held onto the point in typical Pulis fashion to scrape a point away from the King Power Stadium that brings them into touching distance of absolute safety.

As for Leicester, the result gives Tottenham Hotspur the opportunity to surpass them at the top of the league with a win over West Ham United tomorrow.  Ranieri, however, isn’t sure whether he’ll be watching that matchup tomorrow.

“Maybe I watch Watford more than the others. Watford are the most important, not the other teams,” he smiled. “I think there is Arsenal, Tottenham and Manchester City who fight for the title, and there is little Leicester who fight against them. I want you to remember where we started.”

Homepage photo credit: IFCS - David Baumgartner, via Wikipedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.